We’ve all therapeutically dunked on the Minnesota Twins for chasing an incredible ending to last season by not spending hardly any resources on meaningfully improving the roster.
Moves have been made, like trading All-Star second baseman Jorge Polanco, but it’s hard to say the Twins did added enough to make fans feel any sort of real excitement about the team other than what was already there. If anything, the fans were tremendously let down — something that extended to another lame TV deal with Bally Sports North for the 2024 season — and it’s hard to pinpoint any specific things that were done to make the team better.
Something similar happened at the trade deadline last season, when the Twins folded and opted to not make any deals. The sales pitch was that the players Minnesota would be getting back from the IL would effectively be acquistions, and that’s again something being used to combat the angst.
One of the players slated to make a return to full health is Byron Buxton, which would indeed be one of the best offseason additions any team made this winter. They key is that he needs to return healthy, which all signs continue to point toward with Opening Day around the corner.
Byron Buxton says he’s ’fully healthy’ and ready to return in 2024
After arriving in Fort Myers, Buxton spoke with the media and gave yet another encouraging update on his health. He mentioned at TwinsFest how he was feeling much better, but he took things another step now that he’s reported to Spring Training.
It wasn’t exactly the Michael Jordan ‘I’m Back’ fax, but the vibes were the same.
“The pain's gone, so I'm a lot more happy, 100 percent, 100 percent. The last couple of years were definitely painful, just waking up, feeling like a knife is in your knee every morning,” Buxton said. ”I’m fully healthy so that puts my mind at ease to just go out there and have a normal spring training."
Let’s absolutely go.
Buxton is an All-Star and MVP candidate when he’s firing on all cylinders, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen him truly lean into that prowess. Injuries have nagged him throughout his career and we saw perhaps the worst example of that last season.
He didn’t play a single inning in the field, and slumped hard at the plate more than once. For as well as the team played last year, it’s not hard to imagine the Twins having gone even further if Buxton hadn’t been bogged down by injuries.
Buxton playing the majority of a season healthy has long been a fantasy for Twins fans, but it seems like it will finally become a reality this year.